‘SUFFERED LIKE NO CHILD BEFORE’
Texas girl, 4, ‘beaten to death and strung up with belts in closet’ after mum left boyfriend in charge because she ‘needed a break’
By Sofia Petkar, The Sun
A FOUR-YEAR-OLD girl who was savagely beaten to death at her home in Texas was strung up in a closet with belts and left to die from her injuries.
Leiliana Wright died from blunt force trauma to her head and stomach in Grand Prairie in March 2016.
Leiliana Wright suffered horrific abuse at the hands of her mum's boyfriend hours before she died
Her mother’s boyfriend, Charles Wayne Phifer, is on trial accused of beating the helpless child to death with a bamboo switch fishing rod before hanging her up in the closet with belts.
If convicted, the 36-year-old faces life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Leiliana’s mother, Jeri Quezada, faces up to 50 years in custody for her role in the child’s death.
Horrific images cataloguing her abuse were shown at Phifer’s trial, in what has been described by one police officer as ‘the worst case of abuse he had ever seen’.
The photographs show the young child with severe bruising to her face, a black eye, a puffy eye and bruising along her jawline.
In some gut-wrenching images, it is clear that the four-year-old was barely able to open one of her eyes due to facial injuries.
Speaking at Phifer’s capital murder trial yesterday, Grand Prairie police Sgt. Brad Makovy spoke of the horrific injuries suffered by Leiliana, telling the court: “It was the worst thing I've ever seen inflicted on a child.”
According to a forensic investigator who took photographs of Leiliana’s battered body, medical staff and police officers were reduced to tears outside her hospital room “because she was severely beaten”.
Just 24 hours before Phifer’s trial began, Quezada testified against her ex-boyfriend. According to NBCDFW, Quezada claims that Phifer tied up Leiliana in a closet so that she would not be able to sit down.
He allegedly lifted her up by her throat and threw her into the closet with such force that her body left an indentation.
It is claimed he did this because the child has refused to eat – court documents show she had been unwell and vomiting in the days prior to her untimely death.
Charles Phifer faces life in prison without parole
if found guilty of Leiliana's murder
The girl’s mum claimed that Leiliana’s hands had been bound behind her back with electrical wire, and that something had been tied around her waist when she was hung in the dark closet where she died.
Pictures taken at the crime scene show a bamboo switch fishing rod at the property, believed to have been used to beat the child to death.
I'm hard-pressed to see how you could beat anyone to death with a bamboo fishing rod. Although in the case of Charles Phifer, I would like to try.
Leiliana’s jeans were also shown to the jury, tangled with three belts.
The girl’s mother told police she had left her daughter in her boyfriend’s care as she was “frustrated” and “needed a break”.
She went out for dinner with her mother, leaving her daughter at home. When she returned, she and Phifer used heroin.
Jeri Quezada was a convicted felon with a history of
child abuse that saw her lose custody of three older children
She then enquired about the whereabouts of her child.
Phifer allegedly responded by confirming the girl was in the closet after she ‘fell in the shower’.
The child’s mother, who has a history of child abuse, had previously admitted to authorities that she had kicked and slapped her child as discipline.
However, when questioned in court yesterday as part of Phifer’s murder trial, she claimed to have no memory of telling the police this.
The child’s plight was raised by her grandmother, who sent a photo of the little girl with a black eye to Child Protective Services.
However, despite a visit from a caseworker to the family home in February 2016, Leiliana was allowed to remain in the abusive home where she would die weeks later.
The child had refused to eat due to sickness and vomiting
in the days before her death
The caseworker and a supervisor were fired as a result of Leiliana’s avoidable death.
Giving evidence in court yesterday, Quezada’s mother described how timid and skittish the child was, having lived with her grandmother for a few months.
Adeline Carr described her little granddaughter as shy and quiet, who stared at things rather than asking for them verbally.
She claimed the child was frightened of noises and would not leave her bedroom until she was given permission to do so.
DC man pleads guilty after sexually abusing own daughter, who gave birth to his child
By: fox5dc.com
WASHINGTON - A 39-year-old D.C. man has pled guilty to sexually abusing his teenage daughter, who became pregnant and gave birth to his child, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office of D.C.
The man, who has not been identified to protect the privacy of the victim, pled guilty to first-degree child sexual abuse with aggravating circumstances. He could serve 17 years in prison, and will be required to register for 10 years as a sex offender and also complete a term of supervised release.
Officials say that the man sexually abused his daughter at the family's home in Northwest. They say he sexually abused her on two additional occasions.
The girl said that she never told anyone because she did not want to be the cause of the family breaking up. Investigators say when the girl found that she was pregnant as a result from the abuse, she came forward. The girl later gave birth to the child.
The man was arrested in August 2018 and has been in custody ever since.
Sexual abuse of 6 y/o N.C. child spanned 5 years
A Statesville man is accused of more than 50 child sex crimes that spanned a five-year period.
The Statesville Police Department said Clinton Wayne Weber, 52, allegedly sexually abused a family member he was related to by marriage. The victim was 6 years old with the alleged abuse started in 2012, police say.
The incidents reportedly stopped in 2017, police said.
Weber is charged with 35 counts of first-degree statutory sex offense, 20 counts of first-degree attempted statutory sex offense and one count of rape of a child.
Weber, of Vermillion Loop, was arrested Thursday evening and held on a $1 million secured bond.
New York man charged in child sex abuse investigation
BERNE — A 31-year-old Berne man has been arrested in an ongoing investigation into child sex abuse, Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple said Friday.
John E. McIntyre, a Level 2 sex offender, allegedly had inappropriate physical contact with a 13-year-old girl after communicating with her through text messages, Facebook and Snapchat and arranging a meeting in town.
Sheriff's investigators were notified of the communications on Friday, Apple said, and an investigation revealed that McIntyre also failed to register numerous Internet accounts to the New York State Sex Offender Registry, as he is required to do as a Level 2 offender.
He was arraigned in the Knox Town Court and charged with two counts of failing to register, one count of endangering the welfare of a child and one count of forcible touching.
He was sent to the county jail without bail.
McIntyre was last convicted in 2015 for failing to register a change of address.
Man charged with sexually assaulting
children he was babysitting in N.C.
GRAHAM — A man who used to babysit three children in Alamance County faces charges that he sexually assaulted them.
Tanielu Max Buskirk-Farley, 23, of Camden Wyoming, Delaware, was arrested by Delaware State Police, the Alamance County Sheriff's Office said Friday in a news release.
He is charged with two counts each of statutory rape of a child 15 years or younger, statutory sex offense with a child 15 years or younger, statutory sex offense with a child and nine counts of indecent liberties with a child.
The sheriff's office said it received a report of abuse in May 2018 by the Alamance County Department of Social Services. The report involved a man who babysat three children from October to December 2016 then lived with the family from January to April last year. Investigators interviewed the children, ages 14, 12 and 5, and all three disclosed sexual abuse and/or sexual assaults, the sheriff's office said.
Buskirk-Farley is being held without bail and is awaiting extradition to North Carolina.
Alamance Co., NC
Registered sex offender, out of compliance,
accused of harming Oregon child
By Chelsea Deffenbacher
SPRINGFIELD — A registered sex offender has been arrested in Springfield after a 5-year-old girl told authorities she was being abused by a friend of her mother’s.
Dale Scott Teige, 57, of Cottage Grove, is charged with first-degree sexual abuse and failing to register as a sex offender. Court documents show Teige was out of compliance with registry requirements because his address was not up to date.
The girl first disclosed the abuse in August to her grandmother, who called police. Investigators scheduled a forensic interview with the girl, where she described watching Teige engage in sexual activity. She also said he touched her privates and his own.
The girl’s mother later told police she met Teige in fall 2017 and allowed him to spend the night at her apartment once or twice a month on a hide-a-bed in the living room. However, at some point, Teige started sleeping in the bottom trundle bed of her daughter’s room when he stayed over. The mother also told police her daughter was alone with Teige in the bedroom and in the apartment on occasion.
Police investigating Teige discovered he was arrested in Hawaii in 1984 for first-degree sexual abuse. He was convicted in 2002 of sexual abuse of a child in Utah. He’s a registered sex offender at an address in Eugene, however police discovered he’s lived with his girlfriend in Cottage Grove since November 2017.
Police attempted to contact Teige at the girlfriend’s address Aug. 27, but were told Teige had packed up unexpectedly and gone camping. An arrest warrant was issued in September and Teige was arrested in Umatilla County earlier this week and brought to Lane County on Thursday.
No comments:
Post a Comment